A (French) Kind of Hell
by SherlockGiraffe
Summary: Francis is young heir of a rich family, one with history and years of French culture behind it. So what happens when he goes to London and meets Arthur, an intelligent punk who believes in anarchy, has his own strong views and doesn't agree with the way Francis was raised?


As always, the writer here doesn't own Hetalia, otherwise there would be so much FrUK loving that it hurt, and a fair amount of USUK to be fair... And a lot of other things. (SHIP ALL THE SHIPS!)

Rating may change as the story progresses, but I'm starting it on T, since it is a university after all.

*FrUK*

As he walked down the hall, Francis' heels clicked slightly on the tile floor. His mother has recently informed him that he had been accepted into Cambridge University, a prestigious place which was renowned the world over. His parents had expected nothing less from him, as he had always had the best tutors and the best schooling in all of France, and in most of the world. Having practically paid for his good grades, his parents had always expected him to study in England, but he found it distasteful himself. He associated England with bad weather, bad language and most of all, bad cooking. He was surprised that anyone could bear to live in England, even to just study like he wanted to.

What she didn't tell him, however, was that he was to be moving to the university as soon as they would have him. She said that she wanted him to go and make some international friends, but he knew what she meant. In reality, Francis knew that his mother wanted him to find a partner that he could marry once he finished university when he was twenty-one, after his three year course in philosophy and religion.

He continued to walk down towards the car, his luggage already packed into the car neatly. He slid into the back seat and looked at his father's chauffeur as they begin to drive towards the airport. In a few hours he would be in London. At least he could hope that the people he was staying near in the collegiate were more cultured than he thought the average British person was.

He was the heir to a large French medical company, who supplied almost every hospital in Europe with good quality yet surprisingly cheap medical supplied. His father was a doctor turned entrepreneur, who firmly believed in curing the world of just about everything. His father donated half of the money that the company earned to curing various diseases, but that still meant that his family got millions of Euros a year, even in the economic climate of the time. Francis' father was a tall, slender man, who was starting to grey around his temples but it still looked good on him, and his mother claimed that it made him look mature in the same way that George Clooney looked mature.

On contract, his mother was a woman that looked an eternity younger than she was. She was quite tall for a woman, elegant, and had long waves of golden blonde hair and sparkling blue eyes which she had passed onto her son. She was always neatly dressed and yet never looked overdressed. She had a fashion sense which was simply effortless and completely timeless, and this was another thing that she had passed to her young heir. The blonde woman had no need to work anymore, but she had been a midwife before they were married.

His parents had wanted to push Francis towards being a doctor like his father, but he simply wasn't interested. He was interested in ethics and helping people, but the idea of mess and blood and gore simply didn't please Francis. He would much rather learn and talk to people. He could be a professor or a doctor of philosophy instead, and that would have to please his parents.

The more he thought about it, the more Francis realised that he would miss his parents while he was away. Most of his material possessions could travel with him, but his parents couldn't, which he found sad. They would probably visit him around Christmas, but it was late August, and so as a result, he wouldn't see his parents in the flesh for about four months. The idea seemed horrible, but he supposed that he could talk to them if they weren't busy, which was rare.

*FrUK*

Arthur stood outside the Camden Road tube station and waited patiently for a cab to come and pick him up, one headphone in and playing music loudly. Someone would have to sooner or later. There were pretty much only punks in Camden anyway. Finally, a cab pulled up and he got into it, telling the cabbie his destination.

He had been accepted into Cambridge University recently, after a decent amount of work to get there. He was relieved when he got accepted into the world-renowned university to study English, and it meant that he'd soon be taught by some of the best professors and doctors in the world of the language, even if he didn't agree with their views politically, as he often didn't with most people.

Arthur was an anarchist, and as a result of this, he didn't agree with most of the normal political views in his country. Everyone was saying that they should switch between Labour and Conservatives, but Arthur didn't think that they should have either. The politicians didn't really know what was going on, and they couldn't solve the major problems in the country such as poverty and unemployment, but there were people who could.

He wasn't quite arrogant enough to think that he was one of those people yet, but he definitely had some ideas on how he could make the world a better place, but given the country's state at the moment, he was sure that many people thought they had ideas on how to make the world a better place. Arthur wondered if he could ever finish university and become a politician himself, but of course, he could never call himself a politician. That would be becoming the very thing that he hated in the world.

While the punk was lost in his thoughts, the cabbie pulled up as close as he could get to the university. Arthur pulled out a crinkled twenty pound note and passed it to the cabbie before getting out with his large backpack on his back, and pulling out a heavy suitcase of books and his battered electrical items. He would have to remember to put in a claim for a new one. That was the advantage of going to a good university and boarding there. Surprisingly, it was cheaper, since he could claim for things such as laptops and computers from the university, and the boarding onsite was cheaper than renting a flat.

He smiled at the cabbie as he pulled away and slowly started to make his way towards his new room. There were no sharing rooms on the campus, but Arthur knew that he would have to share a floor with a few people. He just sincerely hoped that he wasn't sharing a floor with anyone too obnoxious, and he hoped that he didn't have to share a wall with someone who rarely slept in pursuit of other... activities. As if Arthur wasn't grumpy enough already, a lack of sleep really did make him beyond irritated, to the point in fact where he would happily stab someone if they meant that he couldn't get at least five hours of sleep. Five hours seemed pretty reasonable to him.

With a little walking and rechecking of directions in his head, he arrived at his own room for the stay, indicated using a simple paper tag next to the door with his name printed onto it. It was small, but it was perfect for him. He didn't intend to spend too much time in his room, but the bed looked perfect for sitting on and the desk was attached to the wall, so he assumed that it would be quite strong. Between his bed, his desk and a tall wardrobe however, Arthur had only a foot or so of visible floor stretched along the length of his room, which couldn't have been more than two meters long.

Arthur decided that he could unpack his backpack and suitcase later, and he wanted to have a quick look around the floor before everyone else arrived and he had to deal with seeing them all and introductions. He left the two bags on his bed and exited into the corridor.

The corridor itself was very bland. The walls were painted beige, the carpet a deep red and the eight doors on the corridor were a boring wooden colour. Two signs hung on the doors at the end of the corridor. One read 'Bathroom' and the other read 'Common Room/Kitchen'. The Englishman decided he should quickly have a peek in both rooms before they were used and likely messed up.

The bathroom looked very normal. There was nothing unusual apart from the three cubicles in the corner. A quick look showed that two were showers and one was a bath, each partitioned from the room with a curtain and from each other with a thin wall. There were two tall open cupboards in the room, each with six shelves, obviously one for each student staying on the dorm. Having seen enough in the bathroom, he left and went straight across the hall to the common room.

In the corner of the room was a kitchenette, clean and unused at the moment. On the ceiling height fridge was a laminated sign reading 'Food without name labels is food for everyone' and Arthur nodded slightly, agreeing with the sign and the writer of it. He cast his eyes over the rest of the room. A small television sat in the corner and three couches were around the box, completing a square. There was enough seating room for nine people comfortably, and six people without them having to be in contact with anyone else at all.

Yet, there was a blonde man of Arthur's own age curled in the corner of the sofa uncomfortably, clutching his phone tightly. Arthur wondered whether he should approach the man and if it would make the other more nervous. He walked slowly towards the other and smiled.

"Good morning. I'm Arthur, I guess that you're boarding on this floor as well," he said, scanning his words in his head to see if he said anything that could be considered offensive. The blonde looked up at him through his glasses and smiled nervously.

"I'm M-Matthew. I m-moved here f-from C-C-Canada," he stuttered. Arthur knew well that he shouldn't finish the other's sentences unless he wanted him to, and so stayed quiet as Matthew struggled through his sentence, not saying anything or even giving any notice to Matthew's stutter. He knew that it must be annoying for Matthew to have this stutter, and so he didn't want to increase the embarrassment of it for him.

"It's nice to meet you Matthew. You're the first person that I've met here today, has anyone else moved onto this floor yet?" Arthur asked, smiling the whole time. Matthew shyly shook his head and stood up.

"If you d-don't mind, I need to go and unpack. I h-hope we can t-talk again, Arthur," Matthew said, before almost running from the common room. It was at this point that Arthur decided he should go and unpack also, so he returned to his small room where he found that the door got blocked completely when he opened the wardrobe's draws at the bottom.

*FrUK*

Francis arrived at the university after his journey. It was only about an hour by plane, but Francis found plane journeys to be boring and since he was travelling by himself, the people sat next to him were strangers and quite often they were exactly that – strange. Francis wouldn't exactly call himself a snob, but he just didn't like to be close to people who acted bizarrely or even smelt strangely. He got off the plane as soon as he could and his mother had organised for a British chauffeur to drive him to his new place of learning and carry his bags to his room.

From what Francis could tell, the floor had already been moved into by some of its occupants. One of the doors down the hall was propped open by a suitcase and one was open just a crack. As he made his way down the hall, the Frenchman found his room and opened the door. The chauffeur immediately put his bags just inside the room and left to go back to his car. Francis looked inside his room and was happy with what he saw.

The room was quite large and had two windows with window seats, letting beams of rare British sunshine into the room. Francis must have had a few meters square of clear floor space that wasn't filled by a large wardrobe, a bed, a desk or a chair. He felt himself smiling and was glad that his mother had got him this room while it was free. He could definitely get used to living in a room like this, even if he would only have it for this year.

Francis sat down on his bed and looked out of the window. He was happy at look of his room and was looking forward to personalise it with his own touches and features. After all, while he was here, he didn't have to be who his parents wanted. He was free to flirt and be with whoever he wanted. This was a new beginning.

*FrUK*

So, first chapter done. Please tell me what you thought and if you liked it or didn't like it. If you didn't, feel free to say why and I'll try to incorporate your comments if I can. Thank you!


End file.
